Grand Jury Urges Delay in County Raises : Economy: The advisory panel wants to study pay increases that are planned for 1,820 employees at a time when services are being reduced and 200 positions cut due to budget constraints.

The Ventura County grand jury is asking the Board of Supervisors to hold off on giving pay raises to 1,820 employees until panel members have a chance to study the proposal.

At a time when county government leaders are cutting 200 positions and reducing services to balance a tight budget, jury members said it appears strange that the board is considering raises for some employees.

“We just thought it really didn’t look too great,” said grand jury member Bill Stewart. “We are looking into it.”

But several county government sources said they doubted that the board would take seriously the grand jury’s request, which was issued in a letter Monday. The grand jury serves only as an advisory body on county policy matters, and officials are not required to follow its recommendations.

Supervisors today are scheduled to consider increasing the pay of a wide range of employees, including middle and upper managers, sheriff’s deputies and maintenance engineers.

In addition, the board is set to consider scaling back a costly perk offered to elected officials and the chief administrative officer--a proposal that the grand jury is also asking the board to delay.

“We expect to make an intensive study,” said Woodrow Shumate, foreman of the grand jury. “We just asked them to delay it until we have a chance to study the proposals.”

Board Chairman John K. Flynn, who received the letter from the grand jury, declined to comment on the matter Monday afternoon.

Earlier, he said he believes that it is important for the county to move forward with the raises, despite cutbacks that include the loss of 200 positions, half of them filled. Affected workers range from librarians to deputy district attorneys.

Flynn said county officials have been in negotiations with union leaders for months hammering out adequate pay increases.

“These negotiations have been going on for such a long time, even before we knew about what we were dealing with on the budget,” Flynn said. “I don’t think it would be right not to go ahead with their raises.”

Under several labor contracts up for consideration by the board, about 265 Sheriff’s Department deputies and sergeants would receive about 15% in pay increases over the next three years. Another 366 law enforcement workers would receive 10% in pay raises over three years, while 850 county managers would receive a $36-a-week pay increase, an average of about 3.7%.

About 200 maintenance engineers and other workers would get pay increases averaging 2.5%. And an additional 140 workers, mostly Sheriff’s Department service and lab technicians, would receive pay increases of up to 8.5%.

The board is also set to consider a proposal by Flynn that would reduce seven weeks worth of “in lieu of vacation pay” given to supervisors, the sheriff, district attorney, treasurer-tax collector, assessor, county clerk and chief administrative officer.

The benefit is offered because the elected officials and the chief administrative officer do not earn a set amount of vacation days a year. They do, however, set their own schedules and take off as much time as they want.

Under Flynn’s proposal, the elected officials would be allowed to choose between two benefit options. The first option would require the elected officials and the chief administrative officer to keep time cards. They would earn a set amount of vacation time and would be eligible to earn up to five weeks pay for any unused vacation--a benefit offered to most appointed county managers.

Under the second option, the elected officials would not be required to sign time cards and still would be allowed to set their own schedules. They would receive three weeks extra pay each year as a bonus.

At first, Flynn proposed completely taking away the bonus, but he modified his request after some officials expressed concern that his original proposal went too far.

County Personnel Director Ron Komers said the three weeks extra pay is the average most managers in the county are receiving annually under a benefit called the “annual leave buy back.”

“We want to treat everyone the same,” Komers said. “To completely take (the bonus) away would be unfair to the elected officials.”

Flynn said, “This is a compromise position. . . . It puts every elected official on par with appointed people.”

But H. Jere Robings, executive director of the Ventura County Taxpayers Assn., called the compromise request “a slap in the face of the taxpayers of the county.”

“They are not deserving of 55 weeks pay a year,” he said. “Obviously, I’m very disappointed.”

Robings, who has also criticized the proposals to give raises to employees, said he welcomed the grand jury’s inquiry.

“I think it’s very appropriate,” he said.